An extreme hoarder in Canada who became pinned down when a large pile of his collected belongings tipped over spent two days trapped in his home until a concerned relative asked police officers to check in on him.

Firefighters from the Burnaby Fire Department were called to assist with the rescue, which took three hours of tunneling through "quite a mess."

"These fellows had to go in and try and find a problem there, and they had to dig through to find this fellow," Assistant Fire Chief Greg Mervin told the Toronto Star.

The 73-year-old homeowner identified only as "Dave" was eventually pulled out from under the debris and transported to a nearby hospital.